Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Conservapedia: New Atheists are Fat!

Wow. If you thought Andrew Schlafly’s Conservapedia couldn’t get any more idiotic, I present to you this article, where they try to claim that the “new atheist leaders” — Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett and PZ — are too fat. And that’s bad, because Christians are skinny and healthy. Go read it, then point and laugh. Then if you really want a guffaw, you can read their explanation for why the theory of relativity is wrong.

Comments

I used to read conservapedia because I thought it was funny. Now I just find it depressing.

There are still some people that comment and talk on it who are good people who just have a fundamental disagreement with the people on the left. But, most of the people there, especially Mr. Schlafly, have completely abandoned principle, honesty, integrity, and any pretense at rational thought in favor of a blind and bigoted partisanship that truly baffles me.

If Mr. Obama said that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, these people would immediately deny it.

They are not longer the voice of reasoned dissent from the opposite site of the aisle they are idiotic ideologues who cry freedom while demanding you do exactly what they say.

In fact, obesity, like most other “social pathologies”, correlates well with socio-economic inequality at a population level (see Wilkinson and Pickett The Spirit Level) across rich countries and across US states. In the latter case at least, this means it also correlates well with religiosity.

If Mr. Obama said that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, these people would immediately deny it.

I almost wish Obama would call a press conference just to say that; and see exactly how the loony right react to it. At the very least, Newt Blingrich (another fat atheist?!) would probably find a way to call it “disgraceful.”

Oh, and have these uber-idiots even SEEN any of the atheists they’re blathering about? IIRC the only one who looks at all overweight is Dennett (who gets a kick out of being occasionally mistaken for Santa Claus.)

I just had a look at the relativity bit. By all the Gods that live, these people have created a whole new dimension of cluelessness. (For starters, an object’s mass does not approach zero as its velocity approaches c; it approaches INFINITY. “Dumbass” is far too mild a word for these people.)

“It is a well known fact that Indian Christians have less problems with obesity than Western atheists. And while this is partly due to Indian Christians pushing themselves away from their dinner tables before Western atheists, it is also due to the fact that Christians have way more songs than atheists including many dance songs.”

“The closest thing to Western atheist “culture” is atheist Ron Reagan Jr. dancing ballet which is very sad.”

and

“All true Christian men, on the other hand, have abundant machismo.”

Finally one of the picture captions reads

“Creationist Ken Ham often yodels when climbing up and down the triceratops at the Creation Museum and he also yodels when engaging in mountain climbing. To the best of Conservapedia’s knowledge, the corpulent PZ Myers does not engage in mountain climbing.”

The ‘talk page’ portion of the relativity page is way more fun than the relativity page itself. Read the (amazingly) well-written and well-thought-out comments, and then the Schafly replies. (Shorter Schafly: “I don’t need proof or references – I’ve got conservative logic! And it’s the lamestream media’s fault!”.) Comedy gold.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I may be fat, but I can lose weight, and you’ll still be stupid.

Their delusion and detachment from reality as we know it gets even weirder and/or funnier when you think about how the Republicans collectively between them own about 1/8 of a neck. Seems like most of the people in American public life who spend the most time whinging on about religion and morality and Christianity and blah blah all look like eggs parked on top of beach balls, on something that vaguely resembles legs.

That appears suspiciously like a Poe. When Conserapaedia first came out, it immediately became the target of pranksters. I imagine a lot of people still amuse themselves inserting random bits of crazy to see if anyone can tell the difference.

Weight gain or loss is directly related to quality of food and quality of exercise*. Unfortunately good quality food is expensive so obesity is always going to hit less well off people, as if they don’t already have enough shit stacked against them.

* There is an excellent book by Jonathan Bailor that wades through 10 years of research on the subject.

It’s true that conservapedia attracts a lot of parodists, but the series of “obesity” and “machismo” articles are written by Ken DeMyer, one of the admins. As much as people think he’s also a parodist, he spends too much time doing this stuff for it to be a joke.

The “Atheists are Fat” meme is pretty much the sole property of a Conservapedia obsessed guy called Ken DeMeyer — “User:Conservative” at CP. You can keep up with his shenanigans at RationalWiki, who have a WIGO (What Is Going On) page on CP.

It’s true that conservapedia attracts a lot of parodists, but the series of “obesity” and “machismo” articles are written by Ken DeMyer, one of the admins. As much as people think he’s also a parodist, he spends too much time doing this stuff for it to be a joke.

As ludicrous as it may seem, if Schlafly ditched DeMyer and his endlessly inane sneering, Conservapedia would improve significantly. (Not that difficult when you consider just how dreadful it is now.)

The reason he doesn’t is that DeMyer is probably the most prolific contributor to the site, albeit mostly in the form of unencyclopedic screeds on how atheists are fat and that global atheism is dying. That causes bystanders (like Ed) to come and stare incredulously at the insanity of it all, thus driving traffic to the site.

Without DeMyer, the site would rapidly sink into oblivion, so Schlafly lets him break all the rules of the site with impunity, and allows him to take over the main page for his bizarre ramblings. That Schlafly tolerates a level of stupid even greater than his own to prop up the site just shows what a pathetic figure he cuts in the conservative movement.

I like that they rely on phone interviews to correlate religiosity with exercise and nutrition. Three things that people lie about the most – how much they eat, how often they exercise, and how religious they are – all in one poll. Is it remotely surprising that they would correlate strongly? I’ll bet exercising a lot and eating healthy also correlate well with a very conventional (but amazing) sex life and always thoroughly washing your hands after going to the bathroom.

lofgren“I like that they rely on phone interviews to correlate religiosity with exercise and nutrition. Three things that people lie about the most – how much they eat, how often they exercise, and how religious they are – all in one poll.”
Well wouldn’t you lying Atheists lie too? Lie more? You can’t fill that God-shaped hole with Ding Dongs, Atheists! So stop trying! Also, give me one.

I think one of the classic parts of that site are where the owner, Andy Schlafly, has proclaimed that Fidel Castro actually died several years ago, and any and all public appearances since then have been made by a double, and the ‘lamestream media’ are either colluding with this or being fooled by the stand in and remaining silent about such suspicious things like the alleged Castro wearing a scarf, apparently to hide the ‘age of the neck’. You can see that, and various other ways in which Conservapedia is definitely not wrong, no sirree, here:

That Schlafly tolerates a level of stupid even greater than his own to prop up the site [in Ken DeMeyer] just shows what a pathetic figure he cuts in the conservative movement.

I skimmed Wikipedia’s record for Conservapedia to check out if anyone contributed information regarding Conservapedia’s influence in the public square. I’m primarily concerned K-12 conservative Christian children being home-schooled or attending a denominational school utilize this horrid site, or their indoctrinators. As best as I could tell they had nothing.

Whole grains not so much, you want to stay away from refined starches and sugars. 80% of your diet should be non-starchy vegetables and lean protein (40%,40% split). You can snack on fruit, nuts and seeds. You should never starve yourself, this is the worst thing you can do. Basically if you think about what our distant ancestors would have eaten*, you are on the right track.

I skimmed Wikipedia’s record for Conservapedia to check out if anyone contributed information regarding Conservapedia’s influence in the public square. I’m primarily concerned K-12 conservative Christian children being home-schooled or attending a denominational school utilize this horrid site, or their indoctrinators. As best as I could tell they had nothing.

Yeah, it says a lot that much of Conservapedia’s traffic comes from RationalWiki, at least according to one of the sites that measures site metrics.

Schlafly does homeschool a few poor unfortunate souls–and does a terrible job at it–but it’s a drop in the ocean compared with overall number of kids get a private, religion-based education.

Yes I can see the confusion there it was the first thing that popped into my head when reading the book as well.

I think that he generalizes on the side of refined products as they are particularly bad for you. Whole grains are better than their refined counter parts but are still relatively low on his particular scale.

On of the main reasons is that the body is particularly efficient at turning starch into glucose that then gets stored as body fat. Lean protein on the other hand is particularly inefficient with approx 30% of the original calories available to be potentially stored as body fat, digestion burns the rest.

Also of interest is the KKKonserv-o-pedia article on “glue,” which atheists new and old share basic properties with in their futile attempts at debating the gawdly, and the photographs of Richard Dawkins’ (or, as he is identified several times in the article, “dumbo ugly atheist second-rate actor ex-game show host Richard Dawson”) mother’s wake, in which she is clearly wearing army boots.

Unless they are armed, I need not even get upset at these self-debased, infantile, would-be evil little shits. They need not even be ridiculed, just quoted.